50 Ongoing Cases
 

There are 50 ongoing obscenity investigation cases at the DOJ right now.

This is the time when you should carefully scrutinize everything you produce or promote and remove and steer totally clear of anything at, near or over the edge.

I agree. The last thing you want is to end up being investigated.

Yes, and unless you have extensive and diversified financial resources, the costs to defend yourself in a prolonged Federal obscenity indictment would bury most webmasters.

ermm :(

Well.. this is why sometime i am glad i am outside of USA..
:1orglaugh

If you figure 25,000 active webmasters the odds are 1:500.

More likely though the investigations are focused in the area of the 1,000 larger players so the odds shift to 1:20.

1:20. Think long and hard about that. Those are not odds to be taken lightly.

Costs to defend a case like this would definately bury me.

I'm not sure that trying to get their houses in order at this late date is going to help some people. And I also realize that once that steamroller starts moving, it's going to pinch everybody most unpleasantly.

The worst of it will be when some of the people targetted start rolling over though. What the Man can do to you is nothing compared to what an ex-business partner or disgruntled employee that's been put on the spot. And you'd be a fool to think it won't happen, these people are looking to make headlines this time around.

Looking to justify the need for their court-overturned COPA, CIPA and COPPA attempts, they'll be trading dirt up to get the juiciest bits out into the light. Mark my words...

I hope all 50 are against right wing webmasters.

As much as I support free speech and am strongly against any prosecutions, if they are going to happen, let's hope they happen to the people who put Bush and As-hc-ro-ft into power.

KRL you are 100% right...

And I think its important for people to realize that this is a business under the heavy eye, and to act accordingly.

*whistles Canadian national anthem*

Seems like this is happening because of pressure from fundamentalist christian groups. Surprise surprise.

http://www.family.org/cforum/fnif/news/a0027321.cfm

do you think the Sweets are whisting it as well?

Didn't they get nailed for the same thing (obscenity)?

Canada has well defined obscenity laws. As long as you don't cross those boundaries, you're fine. In the US, as I'm sure you're well aware, obscenity is whatever a jury decides it is. That is a much scarier proposition considering the Fed's can prosecute you for internet transmission in any county in the country they choose.

I wouldn't be suprised if we started seeing porn that has been ruled not obscene in the San Fernando valley under California State laws (Max Hardcore specifically) get prosecuted sucessfully for obscenity in some Alabama hick town.

That's assuming all 50 obscenity cases are internet porn-related.

One other thing.. the SCOTUS has ruled that applying one community standard to the whole internet is NOT necessarily unconstitutional. Many people are not aware of this, but it was part of the COPA or CIPA decisions.. I can't remember which.

KRL,

The only question is --- who defines near or over the edge? I mean which jurisdiction?

Anal sex could be obscene in one place, Oral in another, Interracial in another.

It's funny how the Fed's are bitching about California "Cherry Picking" the Federal rules they want to follow and the ones they wont (ie: Medicinal Marjiuana), when down the block and around the corner they are "Cherry Picking" states with conservative & in some cases, downright laughable definitions of obscenity to help them start/renew thier war on adult entertainment.

I love the USA, but I sure do hate this hypocritical self-serving adminsitration. :321GFY

Great question. Best answer would be to put yourself in the eyes of the jury and look at it from their perspective. The stuff Extreme produces would turn anyone's stomach.

If he gets acquited I think the industry is home free, since that's about as far as you can push the envelope, shy of producing snuff films.

wouldn't that be a lark.

Maybe we should write an email to A-s-h-c-r-o-f-t about not putting his porn site owning constituency in jail. We could add all the right wing webmasters we know as signatories with their URL's.

:1orglaugh

"But I'll never be able to vote for you again if you convict me of a felony!"

Yeah, I'll hold my tongue on my opinion of the rape stuff.. but if its staged & clearly acting...maybe a big bold disclaimer before it starts I don't know. I mean there are rape scenes in tons of movies too (imdb returned 92 matches for 'rape')...

Now of course _I_ wouldn't want to make or promote a fantasy rape adult movie, or web site or have anything to do with it.

But if it's made up, and people are made clear of this...

I mean this is what the constitution is about right? There are a lot of things supported by the constitution that I would probably be against... but it's their right to produce it.

But the big worry of course is letting them start to pick & choose what should be banned & what should be allowed. As silly as it sounds now, eventually you might find Anal or Interracial banned.

Craziness ...
Do you have a good link to this "one community" ruling or other?

Deleted my first post because I mistook CIPA for COPA. Fucking acronymns, lol.

Anyway... I overstated the case somewhat. The SCOTUS didn't so much rule on the community standards issue as indicate how they would rule in the future.

The ACLU challenged COPA on behalf of a group of content providers. The trial court found the law unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that the law was unconstitutional, but said it was unconstitutional because of its reliance on ?contemporary community standards? which made the law overbroad.

SCOTUS reversed the Third Circuit?s decision.

They didn't decide on the constitutionality of COPA, finding only that COPA?s reliance on ?community standards? as applied to the whole internet does not by itself make the law unconstitutional.

I'm no legal expert, but the ruling says to me that no law which regulates internet content is going to be ruled unconstitutional just because it could be employed to apply the standards of one community to another. You can bet the religious cranks in the Republican party will take note of that when writing new legislation.

where did you get that number 50?